László Erdős and Peter Jonas new members of Academia Europaea

László Erdős has been named member of Academia Europaea (section: mathematics). The mathematician—since 2013 professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria—studies mathematics of disordered quantum systems and matrices. Erdős and his team focus on developing mathematical tools to rigorously prove and understand the phenomenon of random matrices.

Peter Jonas has also been elected as member (section: physiology & medicine), and was appointed as a founder of a neuroscience research cluster. Jonas, who joined IST Austria as professor in 2010, works on the understanding of the function of neuronal microcircuits. His research group investigates how signals pass through synapses in the brain—a major undertaking in the field of neuroscience.

IST Austria President Thomas Henzinger, also a member of Academia Europaea: “I congratulate László Erdős and Peter Jonas. Being invited as a member is an honor and a tribute to their excellent research.” Together with mathematician Herbert Edelsbrunner, IST Austria now has four professors as members of the Academy.

The Academy was founded in 1988 with the goal to advance excellence in scholarship and to strengthen the interdisciplinary and international exchange in science. Members are leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics and the law. Members are invited and elected by the Council of the Academia. The Academy currently consists of about 3’000 members, including 57 Nobel laureates.